Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Super fortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of pilot Paul Tibbets (shown below). On 6 August 1945 Tibbets and his flight crew dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, thus leading to the end of the war.

Tibbets was just 29 years old at the time. The Enola Gay became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war. The plane, now housed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, has been restored, and Tibbets attended the unveiling in 2003.

Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets

(born February 23, 1915 – died November 1, 2007)

Enola Gay on display in the Steven F. Udar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian Museum